When do you use an apostrophe after the s? It’s one of the trickiest apostrophe rules to get your head around.

Let’s take a look at an example.

My brothers cars.

My brothers car.

In both cases, the word brother needs an apostrophe – because we need to indicate possession. In other words, that the cars belong to the brother or brothers.

And where we put the apostrophe completely changes the meaning of the sentence.

If we put the apostrophe before the s….I have just one brother.

In the first example, he has several cars. In the second example, he has one car.

If we put the apostrophe after the s…. I have two or more brothers. In the first example, they have two or more cars between them. In the second example, I have two or more brothers, all sharing the same car – which sounds like a recipe for family strife to me! So just remember, use apostrophe s for singular possessive.

And s apostrophe for plural possessive.